


Five Footfalls On The Road To Tartarus

by inlovewithnight



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-04
Updated: 2006-03-04
Packaged: 2017-10-15 21:43:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/165216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>In Greek mythology, Tartarus, or Tartaros, is both a deity and a place in the underworld — even lower than Hades... It is a dank and wretched pit engulfed in murky gloom.</i></p><p>Five viewpoints from Pegasus when she was alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Footfalls On The Road To Tartarus

(physician)  
If the Gods weren’t dead, they’d weep for what I’ve seen.

They come in here one by one, looking to fix what’s broken. Big-eyed kids from the deck crew asking for something to make them sleep, to make the nightmares go away. Viper pilots needing something else, something to keep them awake so they can scratch out one more shift in the cockpit. Conscripted civvies wanting to forget what’s gone. I give them what I can. There’s not much left in my pharmacy, even after we stripped the fleet.

The usual round of deck-crew bumps and scrapes and pilots torn up from popping too many g’s, made worse by strain and exhaustion. Dealing with those isn’t a problem.

But the new kind of patient I’ve been seeing lately. The new kind of injuries, that I’ve never seen on a battlestar, but that I know on sight. Any med-school rookie who’s done a rotation in a Caprica City emergency room knows these. Bruises and scratches on the forearms and hands, sometimes a cut on the face. The inverse of defensive wounds.

I don’t ask. I don’t want to know. I do know.

I patch them up and send them back out.

  
(pilot)  
I was ten minutes late to CAP. I overslept, is all, it was an accident. And I’m damn lucky I just got kitchen duty off of it. If the CAG had told Admiral Cain, she would’ve shot me on sight, I bet. That’s what she does if she thinks discipline is slipping. The Admiral’s a crazy bitch and you don’t go against her if you know what’s good for you.

But the CAG’s a good guy--Stinger’s all right--he didn’t tell her. Just sent me up here for a shift working the cafeteria, so I’ll remember to wake up on time next time. This isn’t so bad. Just opening boxes of rations, heating them up, putting them out for the crew. I’ll take that over a bullet in the head, that’s for sure.

The only this is that last crate, the one I just opened. It’s a whole mess of stuff, not Fleet-issue. Must’ve come off one of the civvie ships before we jumped.

Some of this is stuff I haven’t had since my last shore leave. Good stuff. Sweet stuff. Stuff not mass-produced by generals looking for maximum productivity.

There’s blood spattered all over the boxes. I can’t eat this.

  
(knuckledragger)  
Fix the Vipers, send the Vipers out. Raptors, too. Give them a once-over, make sure the electrics aren’t fried, send them out again.

Check the ammo, the gimbals, the fuel hoses. Send them out.

I can’t keep track if today is yesterday is the day before or is it tomorrow? It’s all a blur of grease and fuel stinging the scrapes on my hands, and hollow-eyed pilots snapping their collars in place and putting on their helmets and climbing up the ladders.

When they come back, I can’t tell if they’re relieved or disappointed to still be alive. They climb down, unsnap the collars, disappear toward their racks. Back in eight hours for pre-flight. Before then, the plane has to be looked over and re-fueled and re-loaded with ammo and stand ready to fly again. Round and around it goes, and I can’t keep track of what I’ve done already and what I did a week ago and what I haven’t done yet, on this plane or on the dozen that look just like it.

If I missed a weak spot, cut a hose, fouled a gun, I think the pilots might thank me as they went out in flames.

  
(marine)  
Viper jocks have it easy.

They get to get out of here for at least a shift every day, two if the Admiral’s feeling edgy. They get off this frakking floating tin can, they do a job that makes them think, they could make a break for it if they wanted.

Not us. We don’t fly. We sit, we check the rounds in the guns, and we stand guard. We watch the Admiral’s back. We watch the Cylon prisoner. We watch.

The last time any of us did a job that wasn’t watching was when we collected the stuff from the civilian ships. The Admiral called it extracting resources. We extracted them, all right. Extracted food and medicine and engine parts. Extracted technicians and people we could use.

Extracted their families’ brains all over the bulkheads.

We pulled those triggers on Cain’s say-so, and the blood’s on her hands, not ours. We’re good soldiers. We followed orders. That’s all.

Not that there’s any review board to call us in front of now. No law but the Admiral, and on the other side of her, the Gods. We’ll answer to them when we get there.

Until then, we sit and watch.

  
(infiltrator)  
I know she’s down there. If I stand in a certain corridor, and the ship is quiet, I can hear her crying.

Her suffering is unfortunate, but all is part of God’s will. Her pain will bring her closer to God, if she opens herself to it. If she allows herself to learn from it. This must be, so that other things may come of it. We are nothing without our faith.

Six is a strong model, perhaps even stronger than she herself realizes. She will endure. She will work God’s will whether she intends to or not. It is inescapable.

The humans only prove their barbarism, their lack of worth, by what they do. Their viciousness underscores our righteousness. The Six that they wound martyrs her body to a higher glory, and the guarantee that these creatures are too foul to be forgiven. They will not be redeemed.

And there will be vengeance; my poor sister must not forget that there will be vengeance. Every one of them will die, not only for what they’ve done but for what they are. Flawed. Imperfect. Displeasing to God.

All unfolds as it must, and her tears run down to God’s river.  



End file.
